The keynote-mcp server enables AI-powered automation of Apple Keynote presentations through AppleScript, allowing creation, editing, and export of presentations via natural language commands.

Presentation Management

• Create new presentations with optional themes, open existing files, save/close presentations

• List all open presentations, set/retrieve themes, get presentation info (name, slide count, theme, resolution, slide size)

Slide Operations

• Add, delete, duplicate, move, and select slides

• Set slide layouts, retrieve available layouts, get slide info and slide count

• Clear all user-created content from a slide

Content Creation & Editing

• Add text boxes, titles, subtitles, bullet lists, numbered lists, code blocks, quotes, images, and shapes with control over position, size, font, color, and opacity

• Get all slide elements (text, image, shape, table), edit text items by index, delete elements, move/resize elements, and set element opacity

• Get and set speaker/presenter notes

Animations

• Add and remove Build In animations (e.g., Appear, Dissolve, Fly In) to text, image, or shape elements, with delivery options (e.g., By Paragraph)

• Add animations to multiple elements on a slide sequentially

• (Requires macOS Accessibility permissions)

Export

• Screenshot individual slides (PNG or JPG)

• Export entire presentations as PDF

Unsplash Integration (requires API key)

• Search and add stock images from Unsplash directly to slides

Design Intelligence

• Ships with a Claude Skill addressing real-world design challenges: font clipping bugs, theme compatibility, coordinate math, shape fill limitations, and proven layout patterns

Compatibility

• Works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and other MCP-compatible clients via stdio transport; can be built as a standalone binary for isolated Accessibility permissions

Enables programmatic control and automation of Apple Keynote, allowing the creation, editing, and management of presentation files via AppleScript.

Utilizes macOS system automation and UI scripting capabilities to interact with the Keynote application and handle presentation tasks.

Provides integration with the Unsplash API to search for high-quality images and insert them directly into presentation slides.

pip install keynote-mcp

uvx keynote-mcp

git clone https://github.com/ByAxe/keynote-mcp.git
cd keynote-mcp
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

claude mcp add keynote-mcp keynote-mcp

claude mcp add keynote-mcp "bash -c cd $(pwd) && .venv/bin/python -m keynote_mcp"

{
 "mcpServers": {
 "keynote-mcp": {
 "command": "keynote-mcp",
 "env": {
 "UNSPLASH_KEY": "your_key_here"
 }
 }
 }
}

{
 "mcpServers": {
 "keynote-mcp": {
 "command": "uvx",
 "args": ["keynote-mcp"],
 "env": {
 "UNSPLASH_KEY": "your_key_here"
 }
 }
 }
}

cp -r skills/keynote-presentation ~/.claude/skills/keynote-presentation

"Create a presentation about our Q1 results with 6 slides"
"Add a slide with a code example showing the API"
"Export the presentation as PDF"

cp env.example .env
# Add your key from https://unsplash.com/developers
# UNSPLASH_KEY=your_access_key

skills/keynote-presentation/
 SKILL.md # Main skill file with YAML frontmatter
 references/
 theme-reference.md # Theme compatibility table
 coordinate-reference.md # Layout math and centering formulas

src/
 keynote_mcp/
 __init__.py # Package version
 __main__.py # python -m keynote_mcp entry point
 server.py # MCP server — routes tool calls via stdio
 tools/
 presentation.py # Presentation lifecycle tools
 slide.py # Slide management tools
 content.py # Content creation and editing tools
 export.py # Screenshot and PDF export tools
 unsplash.py # Unsplash image integration
 utils/
 applescript_runner.py # Executes AppleScript via osascript
 error_handler.py # Exception hierarchy and validation
 applescript/ # AppleScript source files
skills/ # Claude Skills for this MCP
tests/ # Test scaffolding

# Install pyinstaller
pip install pyinstaller

# Build standalone binary (~31MB)
pyinstaller --onefile --name keynote-mcp src/keynote_mcp/__main__.py

# Code-sign so macOS tracks it as its own app
codesign -s - -f dist/keynote-mcp

{
 "mcpServers": {
 "keynote-mcp": {
 "command": "/absolute/path/to/dist/keynote-mcp"
 }
 }
}